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Wednesday, November 9, 2011
So, congratulations to the people of Washington on your wise choice and your victory! And...what's it mean for us? This definitely puts an intangible momentum behind privatization in PA; another state did it, and the sky hasn't fallen in. But tactically? It doesn't mean much. We don't have a Costco willing to step up and fund a campaign for privatization...and even if we did, it's not as simple as that. Because we have to work with the Legislature, and they've been thwarting the public's will on this for years.
Think about it. The polls consistently show the voting public in favor of privatization by a 2:1 margin, yet the Legislature still argues over whether they should even be thinking about it. They twiddle and diddle and talk about the PLCB's "modernization" plans, and the revenue, and the union, and THE CHILDREN!!!!! All red herrings. The People want the State out of the booze business. Very simple. Get the hell to work on it.
Why don't they? Well, the same polls show that only 17% of voters consider this an important issue. I'll grant that, and compared to some others, it's certainly not as important. On the other hand, the heavy lifting has already been done: there are a number of plans out there, some over ten years old, to privatize. Pick one, and do it. It's not controversial if 65% of Pennsylvanians are in favor of it.
Why else? Maybe because of the revenue coming in from our police-enforced monopoly. Prices at the State Store System aren't THAT much out of line with surrounding states -- I've never said that prices were a major issue, although selection and service ARE -- but that's because the PLCB has been willing to take a hit on profits (the governor's PFM report on privatization shows profits steadily declining; more on that soon) to keep their costs high. That's right, I said willing to take a hit on profits to keep their costs high. Because they're a bureaucracy staffed by a union, not a private company, they don't mind not being profitable (according to that PFM report, over half the PLCB's stores are not profitable), as long as they keep their jobs.
Why are the profits declining? So they can stay somewhat competitive while continuing to collect Pennsylvania's outrageously high wine and liquor taxes. But send that private, and the stiff taxes will be exposed. This is the ugly underbelly of the PLCB's State Store System: we pay more than other states on wine and liquor excise taxes: a whole lot more (jump to the link, then scroll down and take a look at the last three tables).
So we need to tell our legislators that when they take this system private, they need to take that burden off our backs and spread it around in a more fair and equitable manner. Or...pick it up in a Marcellus Shale tax of some kind...which it looks like they're already thinking about. Push for that. Because otherwise some genius is going to look at upping the beer tax, and we don't want that!
A good day for Washington State. With luck, a good beginning for Pennsylvania. Keep the ball rolling!
11 comments:
- Laurie Mann said...
There's a poll that sometimes pops up on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette site about liquor privitization in Pennsylvania. The last time the results for that poll appeared, pro-privitization had 72% of the votes. That's interesting given that the PLCB usually makes the pro-privitization supporters to be inherently anti-union (which many of us are not). http://www.post-gazette.com/
- November 12, 2011 at 3:26 PM
The sale is dead.
We will hear privatize again around election time when the Republicans need the votes. Until then, wine in stores and business as usual for the PLCB.
- December 13, 2011 at 7:13 PM
- Lew Bryson said...
Okay, okay, nothing is set or certain. Except one thing: for the first time since Repeal, a bill that even partially privatizes the PLCB is in the full House. It has been amended...and can be amended again. This is just a step.
- December 13, 2011 at 7:38 PM
- Edward Goodsmith said...
My biggest issue, and why I'm pro-privatization is customer service, and ease of shopping. I'm originally from Michigan, I moved to PA in 2009 so you can understand that when I first moved here I was really confused (I still am on some of the more obscure laws). It was pretty alien to me. More importantly I was used to having a liquor store where the owner knows my name, and if I wanted a special beer that was hard to find, or a bottle of booze or wine that I couldn't find anywhere else I could tell him and he would always come through for me. Not so in PA, try asking a state store employee to do something like that (they can't!). If you want service like that you have to go to Delaware (but wait, that's illegal!)
I understand that the employees of state stores don't want to be out of a job, especially in an economy like this. But you know if any law does pass the severance packages will be extremely generous for them, and I'm sure benefits will also be generous, so it's not like they're going to be put out on the street.
- January 3, 2012 at 1:36 AM
Wow Lew just think if you would have just spent half your time trying to find a cure for Pancreatic Cancer and how things could have been different. Keep up the fight to get rid of the dreaded PLCB.
- February 18, 2012 at 12:53 AM
- Lew Bryson said...
Goofball. I donate money to pancreatic cancer research, I host fundraisers for the research. But I know nothing about oncology; this crap I do know, so I can actually get involved. It's a hobby; you ought to look into getting one.
- February 18, 2012 at 8:46 AM
Goofball? I am not the one with a camera on my head. Enjoy your hobby as an internet blogger. It does sound really exciting and rewarding.
- February 20, 2012 at 1:42 AM
Hey I just wanted to see if you are still around have not seen any new post, any info
- May 29, 2012 at 8:12 PM
- Lew Bryson said...
Yeah...I'm still here, but I'm depressed. There might be some life in things if the Governor's serious; we'll see.
- May 29, 2012 at 8:24 PM
Well it is dead now.
Who is going to buy a license and jump right into a lawsuit between the Corbett and the unions?
Reread my Dec 13, 2011 post. Corbett and the GOP played us like suckers; just like Thornburg and Ridge. Make the promise, get the votes, get elected, enjoy the patronage and do nothing to privatize.
- June 6, 2012 at 5:30 AM
Or I could be wrong.
- June 8, 2012 at 5:27 PM


text:
BCArchive 1.03
This program allows you to encrypt and compress a group of files and folders to a single encrypted archive file.
You can create self-extracting programs containing encrypted archives and e-mail it to your friend. He or she will receive this archive and can read your files, either via knowing the correct password or via using public or secret key technology.
All already generated public and secret keys used in other programs can be also used in BCArchive to create encrypted archives and e-mail it to desired recipient. BCArchive uses strong symmetric encryption algorithms such as Blowfish, IDEA, Triple-DES and CAST5. It also uses secure hash algorithms such as SHA-1, MD5 and RIPEMD-160. It uses asymmetric public/secret key algorithms such as RSA and ELGamal/Diffie-Hellman. It conforms to specifications PKCS #5, PKCS #12 and X.509.

subset: commoncrawl


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Interesting stuff I saw between getting off work Thursday, and this moment in time right now:
I helped some friends hack an old payphone so we can use it as a normal (not-pay) phone. It still needs a little more work. Yes, it's legitimate and we have all the keys for it.
My wife and I saw the Wall of Infomercial Hell: Snuggies and Shamwows galore!
Five Orchids in an avant-garde arrangement for Valentine's day, because roses are cliche.
A WTF-Mobile. 90s Ford Fiesta meets Hacksaw, flat black paint, $10 fog-lights from wal-mart and some tarp material.
My camera phone makes this shot of LaCygne power plant look like it's from the 60s or something. This is the biggest plant in the region; When it's running at full tilt, it pumps out nearly 1.6 Gigawatts. Great Scott!
My wife and I had one last huzzah* at Sakura, a sushi bar and Japanese steakhouse. If you sit at the sushi bar, you can watch the chefs prepare everything, and then they load the sushi plates onto flatcars on a G-Scale electric model train. The waitstaff simply counts up how many trays you've pulled off the train to calculate your tab. It's actually a pretty affordable place as far as sushi goes, and quite tasty.
I put a new chain on The Goat on Saturday, so it's back to the grind in 10 hours or so.
* Enough fancy meals for this paycheck. Time to make a dang quesadilla!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Ah, what a nice long weekend!
Interesting stuff I saw between getting off work Thursday, and this moment in time right now:
4 comments:
- Chuong Doan said...
Blue boxin' super phreak!
- February 17, 2009 9:18 AM
- Noah said...
Hah. Blue Boxing is ye-olde school. In-Band signalling hasn't worked in AGES. Actually this is an old COCOT from Mexico, and in its factory state would mute the microphone until you inserted real money. COCOTs didn't work with Redboxes anyways, since Redboxes tricked the billing computer at the Central Office (again, in-band signalling) vs. how a COCOT does it (makes the phone un-usable until the internal coin verification mechanism says you put enough cash in)
I digress.
Paul Rixon and I just ended up gutting the hybrid out of an old touch-tone phone and replacing the payphone's complicated internals. It's not quite complete yet, we need a line-powered relay to trigger the hybrid's switch-hook inputs (two of them) with the single switch-hook contact on the payphone.
Ah, fone phreak geekery!
- February 17, 2009 10:56 AM
- Tim O said...
The Fiesta looks like something from Mad Max, for sure.
This weekend sucked, because I could have been biking but was busy with the porcelain appliances :( Hopefully out of the way now, so I can get back on the bike.
- February 17, 2009 11:13 PM
- Pat Ring said...
I see a post missing that I can't comment on. What's up with that? Regardless, I was reading LifeHacker and when I saw this product, I thought of you. Glacier Gloves.
- February 18, 2009 4:32 PM
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BPP University is one of the UK's leading private universities dedicated to business and the professions. The University's aims are to promote excellence in professional education by being forward-thinking, progressive and innovative, to bridge the gap between education and professional practice, to inspire and challenge tomorrow's business and professional people in a supportive learning environment.
BPP University provides degree programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate level across its Law School, Business School and School of Health, with over 11,000 international students currently studying.
We are proud of our integrated, multicultural community and welcome students from all over the world to study at one of our centres in the UK's most exciting cities. International students will be reassured to learn that we have a diverse and multicultural study environment with students from over 100 countries. You will be part of this rich community and surrounded by students who prioritise professional study and their career.
Voted the UK's Best Higher Education Provider by Education Investor Magazine in 2013, our links with leading businesses and organisations allow us to provide you with a highly regarded professional education. Our programmes are designed in partnership with employers and respected professionals in the fields of law, business, finance and health.
At BPP University your career begins as soon as you join us
At BPP University experienced solicitors, accountants, business and healthcare professionals teach you to become the solicitors, accountants, business people and healthcare professionals of tomorrow. Our programmes are designed in partnership with employers and respected professionals in the fields of law, business, finance and health.
When you finish your undergraduate studies at BPP University, you will be in an ideal position to start your new career. However, should you wish to progress your studies further, our postgraduate programmes in law, business, banking, finance, management, chiropractic, psychology, dentistry or healthcare will be invaluable in taking your career to the next level.
Alternatively, the Professional Qualifications and Professional Development courses on offer by the BPP Professional Education Group will allow you to qualify with a number of professional bodies, such as the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), Chartered Managment Institute (CMI), Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and Chartered Banking Institute (CBI) should you choose one of these professions.
The BPP Professional Education Group, founded by Alan Brierley, Richard Price and Charles Prior (Brierley, Price and Prior), is a global education provider delivering world-class professional qualifications. The group delivers programmes across the UK, internationally and through innovative online learning platforms. BPP University is part of the BPP Professional Education Group. However, BPP University is a distinct legal entity with its own degree-awarding powers approved by the UK Privy Council.
Our mission
BPP University is a specialist provider of professional and business education whose mission is to challenge the education status quo to improve the lives of our students and whose aims are:
To promote excellence in professional education by being forward-thinking, progressive and innovative, to bridge the gap between education and professional practice, to inspire and challenge tomorrow's business and professional people in a supportive learning environment.
BPP University Schools
Business School
BPP University Business School is here to prepare you for a career in Business, Accounting, Management, Banking or Finance. A business qualification will also help you to develop the skills you will need for professional success whether you want to start up your own business, develop your family firm or work in a corporate setting. We offer a range of undergraduate degrees with varying levels of speciality – allowing you to choose from the beginning which career path to take.
Being part of the wider BPP Professional Education Group, which trains numerous professionals within many FTSE 100 companies, means that we continue to nurture relationships with the professional world to ensure our programmes are relevant to today's business needs. Whether you study in London or Manchester our outstanding facilities and professional environment prepare you for the corporate world from day one.
Law School
BPP University Law School's reputation for excellence, built on our proven ability to offer students the skills they need to succeed in law, is why many students choose to study with us.
It's not by chance that many leading law firms in the UK send their trainees only to BPP University Law School for their legal education. Our Law School is based in two centres in London, in the heart of legal London in Holborn and on the Southbank at Waterloo. We also have centres in Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Cambridge and Manchester.
School of Health
BPP University School of Health provides you with the knowledge and practical skills you need for a professional healthcare career, bringing together high-quality tutors and facilities to help you make the most of your potential. BPP University School of Health provides higher education in psychology, nursing, chiropractic, dentistry and health and social care.
Based in London, Abingdon and Manchester, our centres offer the comprehensive support and resources that you will need to be successful in your studies.
6th Floor Boulton House,
Chorlton Street
M1 3HY Manchester, Angleterre, Royaume-Uni
Aldine Place,
142-144 Uxbridge Road
W12 8AW Londres, Angleterre, Royaume-Uni


text:
You Won't Believe Who's on Your Side
Spider-Man: Friend or Foe is a unique take on the most successful Super Hero™ franchise of all time. Inspired by the movies Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3, this Action Adventure game reinterprets big-screen moments and battles with a humorous twist. Players team up with famous Marvel™ heroes to fight the bad guys, and then convert them to sidekicks after defeating them in epic boss battles. Experience ground-breaking Co-operative Multiplayer,as Spider-Man or a sidekick, in exotic spots around the globe, including Tokyo, Egypt and Nepal.


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Richard Ketchum, CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, told broker-dealer compliance officers on Tuesday that while the regulator has noticed improvements among firms' supervision and compliance programs, "heightened supervision" is still necessary when it comes to complex products.
During the Securities and Exchange Commission's National Compliance Outreach Program for Broker-Dealers, held at SEC headquarters in Washington, Ketchum pointed to three areas that FINRA is focusing on—complex products, conflicts of interest and exams.
He also told BDs that the next step in FINRA's "continuing efforts to integrate and merge surveillance with exams" was to increase the amount of data that FINRA gets from its member firms. Said Ketchum: "We are looking to download significant transactional information" from member firms. Ketchum also said he hoped guidance would be coming from FINRA by early summer on conflicts of interest.
As to conflicts, Ketchum noted that FINRA is now reviewing the comments it received on its controversial proposal under Regulatory Notice 13-02 to require that brokers' recruitment compensation be disclosed when they switch firms, and "will soon decide on how to proceed."
Said Ketchum: "When a broker moves to a new firm and calls a customer to say, 'You should move your account with me because it will be good for you,' the customer needs to know all of the broker's motivations for moving. In some instances, recommendations to customers can be driven by direct and indirect compensation incentives to the financial advisor and the firm itself."
Noting that FINRA's concerns about complex products aren't new, Ketchum said that FINRA continued to "see problems" with suitability and supervisory violations.
Ketchum first pointed to structured products, which he said were complex because they typically involve "unsecured debt and involve derivative strategies featuring payouts that are linked to a variety of underlying assets—which are sometimes highly volatile—such as a narrow or proprietary index or some other obscure benchmark." He added that though firms "may market these products to retail customers based on attractive initial yields and, in some cases, on the promise of some level of principal protection, they often have cash-flow characteristics and risk-adjusted rates of return that are uncertain or hard to estimate."
Other complex products include closed-end funds, private REITs, private placement securities and "exotic" ETFs that "have driven way too many enforcement cases," Ketchum told BD compliance officers.
Retail investors may find closed-end funds "attractive," Ketchum said, "because they typically pay income regularly in the form of dividends, interest income, capital gains and/or return of capital." However, closed-end funds require "enhanced supervision because retail investors may not understand that some funds are returning capital to maintain the high distribution rates, causing the closed-end funds to trade at high premiums compared to their net asset value," he said.
The "scarcity of independent financial information and the uncertainty surrounding the private placement securities market and credit-risk exposures associated with many private placements" means firms must conduct reasonable due diligence on prospective issuers, Ketchum said.
Due diligence, he continued, "should focus on the issuer's creditworthiness, the validity and integrity of their business model, and the plausibility of expected rates of return as compared to industry benchmarks. Our primary concern is that inadequate due diligence regarding private placements could expose customers to harm and result in insufficient disclosure."
Ketchum also told BD compliance officials that in addition to assessing the potential risks of the individual products, they "should assess and disclose" their firm's conflicts of interest.
"Start by looking at whether your business practices place your firm's—or its employees'—interests ahead of customers," Ketchum advised. "You should also make sure that the products your firm sells are appropriate for each investor, and assess the potential risks associated with products that raise specific investor-protection concerns. And where applicable, you should disclose any conflicts of interest."
More broadly, he continued, FINRA wants "to better understand how firms identify and manage conflicts."
—Read Ketchum's Big SRO Omission on AdvisorOne.


text:
Before the moths have even appeared
to orbit around them, the streetlamps come on,
a long row of them glowing uselessly
along the ring of garden that circles the city center,
where your steps count down the dulling of daylight.
At your feet, a bee crawls in small circles like a toy unwinding.
Summer specializes in time, slows it down almost to dream.
And the noisy day goes so quiet you can hear
the bedraggled man who visits each trash receptacle
mutter in disbelief: Everything in the world is being thrown away!
Summer lingers, but it's about ending. It's about how things
redden and ripen and burst and come down. It's when
city workers cut down trees, demolishing
one limb at a time, spilling the crumbs
of twigs and leaves all over the tablecloth of street.
Sunglasses! the man softly exclaims
while beside him blooms a large gray rose of pigeons
huddled around a dropped piece of bread.


text:
TraceGains Exhibiting and Presenting Audit Ready at Food Safety Summit Next Week
Westminster, CO -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/04/2014 -- TraceGains, full-service supplier, compliance, and regulatory document management solution, is exhibiting at the Food Safety Summit April 8-10 at the Baltimore Convention Center, Booth #623. The FDA Audit Checklists will be available without cost at the booth. Gary Nowacki, CEO of TraceGains will be presenting on "Becoming 365 Audit Ready" on April 9 at 1:00 PM, in the Exhibitor Showcase Theater on the exhibit floor.
The Food Safety Summit is a solutions-based conference and expo designed to meet the educational and information needs of the entire food industry including growers, processors, retailers, distributors, foodservice operators, regulators, and academia. The Summit attracts industry professionals to learn from expert speakers and trainers, exchange ideas, find solutions to current job challenges and engage in valuable opportunities for networking.
The show provides valuable opportunities for attendees in three days of education offering interactive solutions and tools. The Food Safety Summit attendees will have an opportunity to interface with TraceGains which has made several audit checklists including information about rights regarding to requests for records. Prior to the event, all can access pre-audit, inspection day audit, and the post audit checklists at:
Pre-Audit Checklist: http://hub.am/1eADTEa
Inspection Day Checklist: http://hub.am/1eAE4iP
Post-Audit Checklist: http://hub.am/1hWAAPC
About TraceGains
TraceGains (www.tracegains.com) provides food and beverage manufacturers and distributors with a web-based, full-service supplier, compliance, and regulatory document management solution that automates and streamlines processes to convert static documents into actionable data. With a network of more than 5,000 supplier members and more than 250 deployment sites, TraceGains offers an ever-expanding database of suppliers, purchased items, and documents that companies can leverage to improve product quality, accelerate product development, and meet regulatory and audit pressures. TraceGains not only digitizes all incoming documents, making them easily searchable, but also extracts critical data and analyzes them against customer-specific business and compliance rules, alerting stakeholders to any non-compliance. TraceGains' automated solution assures companies that documentation is up to date, organized, and searchable, making companies 365 Audit Ready. TraceGains' customers boast a four to six month return on their investment. Recently, TraceGains was listed as one of Food Logistics Top 100 software and technology providers. Follow TraceGains on Twitter at @tracegains.
TraceGains, Inc.
Jennifer Brusco
Marketing Strategist


text:
Lee says he turned down more money to join Celtics
Guard points to friendships as reason for joining team
Courtney Lee says he turned down more money to join the Boston Celtics.
The guard said Sunday he came to Boston from Houston after a sign-and-trade deal because of "the core group of guys they had here."
"The expectations every year for this team is to win big and that's one thing I want to do is win big," he said. "Speaking with (Rajon) Rondo during the whole free agency period, he had the same goals that I had in mind - we want to win big, get to the championship and win. And not only for one year but continue to do it.
"We're about the same age - me, him, Jeff (Green) and a couple other guys on the team. ... So we've got the core group here of veterans and we've still got the young guys that can keep pushing for years to come."
Lee said his friendship with Rondo played a large role in the move to Boston. Rondo went to Kentucky, Lee to Western Kentucky.
"There were other teams out there. There were teams that offered me more money, but my goal is to win and there's nothing better than winning," he said. "I got a little taste of that my rookie year (with Orlando), with going to the Finals, and that route was unbelievable. My other years can't compare to that, but now that I'm here we're trying to get on that same race and that same track and win."
The Celtics needed to free up more money to sign Lee and wound up making a three-team deal with Portland in the mix. Lee is set to step into the starting lineup, with Jason Terry, also signed as a free agent, coming off the bench. The Celtics will be without the recovering Avery Bradley (shoulder) for the first two months of the season.
Lee is with his fourth NBA team in five years. He brings quickness and shooting to the Boston offense. Where Ray Allen was a catch-and-shoot player, both Lee and Terry can shoot and take defenders off the dribble.
Asked what Lee brings to the floor, Rondo said "athleticism."
"What I'm expecting to see is just an all-around player," coach Doc Rivers said. "I think he does a lot of things well and that helps our team. He can play multiple positions - terrific shooter, terrific defender, terrific team player."


text:
Product Details
Inspired by clean lines and smooth metal surfaces, these minimalist designs are sculpted with engineered precision.
Style Number: K0Y239 SS
Fit & Care
Metal: Use the provided polishing cloth to gently wipe this item clean, then remove any remaining tarnish with mild diluted soap. Rinse with warm water and dry the design thoroughly before storing in the provided jewelry pouch. Please note: styles featuring meteorite should not be exposed to water.


text:
Genre: Puzzle
A colorful string of beads is flowing down a complex system of rails toward the end of the line—you must prevent the beads from falling off! Shoot a colored bead to match three or more beads. The more you destroy, the higher your score!
Click Play to begin. Shoot beads so they collide with beads of the same color. Match three or more beads to destroy them. Don't let beads reach the end of their line!
Aim your cursor where you want a bead to go then click your left mouse button to launch the bead.
When you have cleared the board of all beads, you win the level and may proceed to the next level!


text:
Here you can find answers to questions about how the board works. Use the links or search box below to find your way around.
PokeGym members with less than 30 infraction points in the last 6 months can participate in our occasional custom avatar days, during which members can upload a custom avatar (sorry, recently established accounts are not eligible). At the end of the upload period, staff will delete the avatars that don't meet these guidelines.
Please read the rationale behind PokeGym custom avatar guidelines:
Since it is the decoration for our forum, your custom avatar should look good artistically, in the judgment of the staff and owners. Yes, this is both subjective and final, just like an art contest.
Please read the following guidelines; your avatar will be deleted if they are not followed.
Lettering - Writing/lettering on the Avatars is not permitted, except as follows:
Of course, even then, it has to be legible & not hurt our eyes. A logo consists of lettering and graphics in the style belonging to its owner, like the Team Galactic G -- most Gs are not a Team Galactic Logo - it has to be the right shape, style and color.
Lettering problems are the most common reason for avatar deletion. If your avatar says Team Bozo and your screen name is not Team Bozo, it will be deleted. If you put a lone G on your logo, but its not the Team Galactic G, it will be deleted, etc.
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Fake Pokemon do not count. Pictures of people or lightly altered/costumed pictures of people are not allowed. In general, animation is a staff privilege and rarely allowed for custom avatar uploads. Read the custom avatar upload announcement to see if animation will be allowed or not; if it is, see the other FAQ items about animation.
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Approval is a group vote so no one person on staff can give you an answer before the day after.
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Just like a post that earns an infraction, an avatar that earns an infraction will be deleted asap.
Final decision - PokéGym senior staff judgment will be the final decision of which avatars meet these criteria and which do not.
Sorry, you may leave your account disused, but we won't delete it. You may wish to provide a really long password and then forget it - that's about the best you can do towards getting away from your account.


text: The Department of Mathematical Sciences at UMass Lowell boasts 30 full-time faculty. A bachelor's degree program is offered through both the day and evening programs. Master's degree programs in Applied & Computational Mathematics, Probability & Statistics, Mathematics for Teachers, and Industrial Mathematics (PSM) are offered through the department. A Doctor of Science in Computational Mathematics is offered in conjunction with the Computer Science Department.


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- Font:
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ASHLAND, Ore. — Isabella Parker knows there are two things a big girl needs before she can go to kindergarten: a new backpack and a set of shots so she won't get sick.
Don't miss these Health stories
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So the brown-eyed 5-year-old doesn't flinch when nurse Katy Cowan jabs two sharp needles quickly into each arm. Within seconds, Isabella is inoculated against diseases once regarded as the scourges of childhood, including measles, mumps, diphtheria, pertussis and polio.
"I think we're protecting our children," explains Vanessa Parker, 29, mother to Isabella and her 8-year-old sister, Haley. "That's a good thing."
But when Isabella shows up at Bellview Elementary on Sept. 8, many of her classmates may not share her status. In Ashland, nearly 30 percent of kindergartners have been issued exemptions for some or all of the vaccines required by state law, a rate seven times the rest of the state and about 12 times the rest of the nation.
That makes this theater town of 21,000 near the Oregon-California border a hotbed for what health officials regard as a rising threat here and across the country: small but growing clusters of parents who seek exemptions to keep their kids from being vaccinated.
Skeptical of government mandates and leery of feared links to disorders from asthma to autism, parents say they're exercising their rights to protect their kids from risk. But health officials say there's no question that the risk of vaccination is far outweighed by the benefits of inoculation, and that those who don't immunize endanger not only their own kids, but also the collective resistance that keeps everyone else safe, too.
"When more than 10 percent of a community opts out of vaccinations, it leaves the entire community at risk because germs have a greater chance of causing an epidemic," said Dr. Ari Brown, an Austin, Texas, pediatrician who represents the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Scientists worry that vaccine resisters increasingly are breaching "herd immunity," the necessary level of protection that keeps disease from spreading. When enough people in a community are immune to a disease, they provide a buffer that keeps germs from infecting those too vulnerable for vaccination, or those for whom a vaccine doesn't work or wears off.
Some diseases, such as mumps, can tolerate a herd immunity threshold as low as 75 percent. But other, more virulent diseases, such as measles or pertussis, also known as whooping cough, require collective immunity of up to 94 percent to avoid infection, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Holes in 'herd immunity'
In small communities in states from Washington and Colorado to Vermont and Michigan, vaccine skeptics are drilling wide holes in herd immunity, leaving others at risk, the scientists said.
"Wherever we have looked, we have found pockets of unimmunized people associated with outbreaks," said Dr. Saad B. Omer, an assistant professor with Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health, who has studied vaccination rates extensively.
On Thursday, government health officials reported that the number of measles cases in the U.S. has reached its highest level in over a decade, with nearly half the cases involving children whose parents object to immunizations.
In the first seven months of this year, 131 cases of measles were reported to the CDC, compared to 42 cases in all of last year. Of that total, 112 were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status, the CDC said. Some were too young for vaccination, but in 63 of those cases the patient or their parents had refused the shots.
In addition to measles, recent outbreaks of pertussis have underscored the dangerous trend. State-by-state vaccine exemptions
In South Whidbey Island, Wash., this summer, Little League teams were eliminated from the regional All-Star Tournament after an outbreak of pertussis. Overall, 88 people were sickened in the Northwest community where one to two cases a year is the norm. Health officer Dr. Roger Case demanded that the teams be pulled, fearing they'd spark an epidemic among players across a wide region.
Low community vaccination levels likely were to blame for the outbreak, Case said. The overall county exemption rate is about 14 percent, but in one local Waldorf School, about 72 percent of children don't have some or all of their shots, records show.
"Herd immunity doesn't work when people who are not part of the herd get sick," Case said.
States require vaccination, but allow exemptions
Certain vaccinations are recommended for babies from birth on, but they're required nationwidefor admission to school, and, in many cases, day care or preschool. Home-schooled children aren't included in the mandate.
All states permit medical exemptions for conditions that range from severe allergies and serious immune system problems to neurological disorders. All but two states allow religious exemptions.
Twenty-one states offer a provision for personal belief exemptions, according to the Institute for Vaccine Safety at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. That includes Oregon, which offers a broad definition of religion as "any system of beliefs, practices or ethical values."
In states that make it easy to acquire non-medical waivers, exemptions have nearly doubled, rising from 1.26 percent in 1991 to 2.5 percent in 2004, the most recent statistics available, Omer said. Those states with easy access to exemptions were associated with a 90 percent higher incidence of pertussis.
Increased exemptions raise the chances that serious diseases reduced or nearly eradicated in this country could make a comeback, particularly among those too young, too old or too medically compromised to be vaccinated, Omer said.
"They depend on the immunity of their surroundings."
That's just as true for those who choose not to vaccinate. Two years ago, the New England Journal of Medicine recounted the case of a 17-year-old Indiana girl who returned from a trip to Romania and sparked a measles outbreak. Of 500 people attending a gathering the day after she got home, 50 were susceptible to the disease. Of those, 34 came down with measles in the next six weeks, mostly children who had not been vaccinated. Three of the youngsters were hospitalized and the cost to contain the outbreak was estimated at nearly $168,000.
Only a vaccination rate of about 95 percent in the surrounding community prevented an epidemic, researchers said.
For some parents, however, the risk of contracting the disease is not reason enough to vaccinate.
"I think a child's immune system is so immature," said Jennifer Margulis, 39, an Ashland writer who didn't vaccinate her three children at all for years, and then selectively immunized them only for a trip to West Africa. "You're putting known toxins in a child before they're 2 years old."
Hesperus, 9, Athena, 7, and Etani, 4, have not received standard immunizations given to more than 90 percent of U.S. children eligible to receive them. They've received vaccinations for yellow fever, meningitis, tetanus and polio, for instance, but not for measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis or chicken pox.
"If you read the list of ingredients about what you're putting intramuscularly into your child, it's scary," said Margulis. "They're not just giving you a little dose of dead bacteria."
Drop in infections and deaths
Scientists could not disagree more strongly. Longstanding immunizations are not only safe, they've contributed to as much as a 90 percent drop in infections and death from vaccine-preventable disease, they say.
At its peak in 1958, before a vaccine was introduced, measles caused more than 763,000 infections and 552 deaths in the U.S. in single year, the CDC said.
But because the vaccines aren't quite 100 percent effective and because protection can wane, even those who are vaccinated can get sick, Omer added.
That's only too clear to Cheri Rae, 55, a Santa Barbara, Calif., mother whose son, Daniel, was 7 and vaccinated when he contracted pertussis from an unimmunized playmate.
"He was as sick as any child I've ever seen," said Rae, noting that four years later, Daniel has only recently stopped taking powerful drugs to combat lingering respiratory effects from the disease. When the issue arose this spring in an ethics column in the New York Times magazine, Rae published a letter protesting the notion that vaccinated children were safe from harm.
"I think it requires thinking a little bit outside your own child and your own family," Rae said. "How does my individual decision affect my neighborhood?"
Weighing the risks
Vaccines do fail sometimes, and they are not without risks, Omer said.
"We know that the risk associated with getting the disease is much higher than the risk of serious side effects after getting the vaccination," he said.
Vaccine critics, however, say such warnings amount to fear-mongering and that public health officials fail to address growing concerns about the possible effects of immunization on individual children.
"They assume that everyone will be exposed and everyone will get sick," said Dr. Sherri J. Tenpenny, medical director of an Ohio clinic that treats many children injured by vaccines. "There are a lot better ways to stay healthy than to inject your body with chemicals."
The federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a voluntary program that records bad reactions to immunizations, receives about 30,000 reports a year, with between 10 percent and 15 percent classified as serious, according to the CDC. Though rare, severe problems can occur, including serious allergic reactions, long-term seizures, coma or permanent brain damage. With the DTaP vaccine, the combination shot for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, for instance, the CDC estimates severe problems occur in less than 1 in a million doses.
But parents often reject vaccinations not because of these known risks, but because of unproven links to disorders such as asthma, attention deficit disorder, or autism.
Increasingly, parents are opting not to vaccinate or, more often, to vaccinate selectively because they don't trust the safety conclusions of the federal government or medical groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, said Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center in Vienna, Va.
"Doctors have become inappropriately comfortable writing off any reaction (to vaccines) as being a coincidence," said Fisher, who believes her oldest son, Christian, developed learning disabilities and attention deficit disorder after a vaccination in 1980. "People are losing their faith in the system."
Some more vulnerable to vaccines
Mandatory vaccine requirements in many states endanger children who may be genetically vulnerable to reactions, essentially marginalizing their risk for the sake of the larger population, Fisher said.
"Once you decide that individuals are expendable in the name of the greater good, how many is too many?" she said. "You can decide that it's OK to throw some people under the bus because that's the price of doing business."
Skeptics' suspicions are bolstered by cases such as the recent decision that a federal vaccine agency will compensate the family of a 9-year-old autistic girl in Georgia whose parents believe her condition was caused by five simultaneous doses of vaccines. Anti-vaccine activists said the government was conceding a link between immunizations and autism, but government scientists disputed that notion, saying that it was an isolated case that established no proof of a link.
That argument doesn't sway critics, however, including parents like Margulis, who said she relies on her own research skills for information.
"I think doctors tend to be taken back by how much I know," she said, adding later: "I'm a public health official's nightmare, not because I'm not responsible, but because I'm too responsible."
Margulis said she worked hard to boost her children's own resistance to disease. She nursed two of her kids past the age of 4 and said she makes sure they eat healthful foods and get regular exercise. She believes her children's systems are strong enough to tolerate disease — and even hopes that they'll get the chance to gain natural immunity.
"I would love for my children to have measles," Margulis said. "Please get me chicken pox and get me measles."
She rejects the idea that her decision endangers others.
"People say, 'You're putting my kid at risk, but that doesn't make any sense at all,'" she said. "If the vaccine works, I'm just putting mychild at risk." Video: Court to compensate autism victim
As a fellow Ashland parent, Isabella's mother, Vanessa Parker, said she regards the decision not to vaccinate by Margulis and many of her neighbors as "selfish."
"When I say selfish, it's because of all the other children that could be potentially hurt," she said.
Part of the problem rests with the very success of vaccines, noted Peg Crowley, the director of the Community Health Center where Isabella Parker got her shots. This generation of parents doesn't recall how sick a toddler can be with measles, so they focus on the very small risk associated with vaccines.
"One of the biggest issues is that parents think they're safe to make this decision," said Crowley, who recalls quarantines from her own childhood. "There's no memory of the consequences of these diseases. We take our protection sometimes for granted."
© 2013 msnbc.com Reprints


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Dodge and ReverbNation teamed up to search for the next star to be featured in an all-new Dodge Dart commercial. Thousands of invitations were issued, but only 500 talented artists were ultimately chosen to create original songs driven by their inspiration of the 2013 Dodge Dart. Then, we handed over the keys to our fans to help vote for the best "Inspired by You" tracks.
The top three artists in each genre who received the most votes became finalists, winning a…Read More


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How to Use Snapchat
How to Use Snapchat
Class Description
"Joel Comm is a leader in many spaces and an expert in Snapchat. This course will bring you up to speed in how to use and create your stories with this exceptional tool." - Rob (CreativeLive Student)
Have you heard about Snapchat, one of the fastest growing social media platforms on the market, but do not know how to get started? Join Joel Comm, New York Times Best-selling author, entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and marketing consultant, as he teaches you how to use all the features on the social media sphere's most exciting new platform and how to build a follower base with your snaps and stories. Joel will start at the beginning and walk you through every step.
In this class we will cover:
- How to set up an account and find friends
- How to create content and use emojis, stickers, text and the drawing tool
- Ways of storytelling on Snapchat
- Ideas for using Geo-filters and repurposing your content on other platforms
After this class, you will walk away excited and ready to use Snapchat to it's fullest potential and start snapping right away.
- Class Introduction
- What can you do on Snapchat?
- What is Snapchat?
- Setting up a Snapchat Account
- Snapchat Features: Finding Friends
- Snapchat Features: Brand Stories
- How to Create Snaps
- Snapping Hands-free
- Embellishments & Stickers for Snaps
- Using Filters in Snaps
- Changing Snap Speed and Lenses
- Save Stories as Memories
- Direct Snaps & Private Only Features
- Snapchat Etiquette
- How to Tell Stories on Snapchat
- Educational Storytelling on Snapchat
- Entertaining Snapchat Stories
- Use Inspirational Storytelling
- Create Experiential Stories
- Instagram Stories: Similarities & Differences
- Build Confidence to Build Relationships
- Discoverability: Make it Easy for Your Followers
- Repurposing Content for Other Platforms
- Create Custom Geofilters
- Go Forth & Snap!
Joel Comm is a leader in many spaces and an expert in Snapchat. This course will bring you up to speed in how to use and create your stories with this exceptional tool. Joel makes it easy and fun to learn, and has a great sense of humor. If you want to learn Snapchat and what to create, take advantage of this course. Joel has done an excellent job.
a Creativelive Student
Wow! This class blew me away. I was fortunate to be part of the in-studio audience. Joel does a wonderful job of educating you on the nuts and bolts of Snapchat. My favorite part of on how to create stories using Snapchat and the use of Geofilters. Most importantly, I really admired the energy and enthusiasm Joel brings with him for this course. A must-buy for anyone wanting to learn Snapchat to spread his/her message.
OMG! This was SO awesome! I've been trying to 'get' Snapchat for a while and it wasn't clicking. Watching Joel pulled it all together. He was funny, engaging and made it so clear!


text: Has anyone had the pleasure of dealing with the idiots at KO Preformance yet? Or I should say not dealing with them. I tried to order floor mats a month and a half ago and still nothing. No order confirmation, no returned calls or emails, but of course they charged my account within a day. Still fighting to get my money back! Seems I'm not the only pissed off person. Check out the link below. Everyone BEWARE of these scam artists! Spread the word! Boycott KO! http://www.m3forum.net/m3forum/showthread.php?t=221792


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OK, enough of this uplift. Back to business.
A few months ago, after I had done a post about destructive rule-changes in current American politics, Andrew Sprung wrote back with this refinement:
>>It's not the rules, it's the norms. That is, the GOP, led first by Gingrich and then by Bush Jr., blew through norms and broke taboos that had greased our democratic machinery for decades prior to the early 90s. These include, "you shall not filibuster every pending bill or block every opposition appointment" as well as "you shall not torture detainees or politicize Justice Department hiring." On the other hand: with the old norms broken, we need some new rules to create new norms.<<
That's on my mind more and more as we assess the damage of the past month in American politics. Let's assess why the results are so sobering:
1. In economics, we have the spectacle of a new wave of public austerity just as the private economy begins to contract again. World markets were "uncertain" during the period of doubt about a debt-ceiling agreement. Now that we have the certainty of contraction and austerity, markets have been down, hard. More important, layoffs are headed up.
2. In the realm of public discourse, we have had a discussion that proceeded as if no one had ever heard that cutting government spending, as private payrolls fall, is a time-tested route toward lower payrolls, more cutbacks, and a longer, harder descent for everyone involved. Maybe you don't want to believe Keynes (even just The Economic Consequences of the Peace) or other postwar economists; or historians or analysts from Robert Skidelsky to Liaquat Ahamed; or Richard Nixon! In that case maybe you'll believe Hu Jintao. We've just had a debate about public finance comparable to a debate about the moon program in which no one had heard of gravity.
3. In the realm of public function, we have the unbelievable travesty of the FAA quasi-shutdown. As Don Brown, longtime FAA controller and safety expert, and former guest blogger on this site, has explained, it's largely thanks to one man -- Rep. John Mica, shown looking dapper in an official photo at right -- that at this moment some 4,000 FAA employees and their families are without income, plus some 70,000 construction workers and their families who are laid off without income while construction projects have been frozen. And this while Mica and his colleagues go on their (paid) month-plus vacation. And while the FAA loses far more in tax revenue from the airlines each day than the "wasteful" spending being argued about each year.
Mica and his colleagues did this through a step that was "within the rules" though obviously destructive. They passed a version of the FAA bill with provisions they knew the Senate wouldn't accept -- and then adjourned for (paid) August vacation, leaving the Senate to swallow their unilateral demands or leave tens of thousands of families without paychecks. All this, of course, as opposed to arranging a way to keep things running while they worked out their political disputes. Many airport safety inspectors are being asked to do their work as volunteers, and run up expenses on their personal credit cards in hopes of later reimbursement. We're not just asking the Chinese to cover our inability to pay our way; we're asking our own GS-12s. This is squalid. As one reader wrote today:
>>I have to wonder, how long can the airport inspectors continue to do their jobs without pay while covering their own travel expenses? I know this isn't exactly a typical charity case but have you heard anything about a fund being set up for these guys or anything like that? I'd certainly donate to help keep these guys afloat while the FAA's finances are in limbo.<<
Governments exist precisely because it doesn't make sense to pass the hat for airport safety -- or border protection or the public-health service etc. You can argue about a lot of government responsibilities, but transportation safety is pretty close to everyone's idea of a core public function. But -- to hell with it! And to those 74,000 families with no paychecks. Let them tighten their belts. This will help the recovery in so many ways, just as the the $1 billion or so in foregone FAA revenues will help cut the deficit.
Maybe Congressman Mica and others who voted for the bill would be willing to front their pay, during the shutdown, to help tide FAA employees or contractors through the hardship? Just a thought.
4. As a matter of political norms, we've been through a change that may be hard to reverse. In essence: moves that were technically legal, but were "not done" because they were too brutal or destructive, have now been done -- and have paid off. It's like the Indiana Jones scene where a sword fighter is warming up for a duel and Indy pulls out his gun to shoot him dead. No one will enter a fight without a gun again. As David Frum put it today:
>>The debt ceiling debate feels like one of those tragic episodes out of the history of the fall of republics. To gain their point on a budget matter, Republicans did something unprecedented in the annals of American government. They made a bargaining chip out of the public credit of the United States. In a well-functioning democracy, certain threats are just not used [not a rule but a norm], and the threat to force the country into default should rank high on the list of unacceptable threats.
Yet congressional Republicans not only issued the threat, they did so successfully. They have changed the rules of the game in ways that will have ramifications for a long time. Maybe Democrats will copy them. Or maybe Republicans will do it again. Either way -- something that was once unthinkable has become thinkable.<<
To draw out the comparison, the President appears to have approached the showdown as neither a chess master nor a pawn but as a dignified sword fighter, against foes with guns in both hands.
More on this anon, including reader messages both pro and con the President's handling of the challenge.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to email@example.com.


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FBI via AP
Connor Stevens, left, Brandon Baxter, center, and Douglas Wright, right, pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted use of an explosive device to destroy property used in interstate commerce.
AKRON, Ohio -- Three self-described anarchists pleaded guilty on Wednesday in an Ohio federal court to plotting to blow up a four-lane highway bridge near Cleveland in April, authorities said.
Douglas Wright, 26, Brandon Baxter, 20, and Connor Stevens, 20, all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted use of an explosive device to destroy property used in interstate commerce, authorities said in a statement.
The three guilty pleas came before U.S. District Judge David Dowd Jr., who expects to sentence the men in November. All three had been scheduled to face trial on September 17.
Five men in all were accused of plotting to blow up a bridge 30 miles south of Cleveland that runs through Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
A fourth suspect, Anthony Hayne, 35, pleaded guilty in July to the attempted attack and agreed to testify against the others. The fifth suspect, Joshua Stafford, is undergoing competency testing.
In July, Hayne said he understood his plea meant that he would face more than 15 years in prison and possible probation for life.
On Wednesday, lawyers for Wright, Baxter and Stevens argued that their clients should not face enhanced sentences on the charges. The so-called terrorism enhancement calls for a minimum sentence of 30 years in prison and up to life.
Without the enhancement penalty, the three men face a minimum of five years in prison.
NBC station WKYC reported:
With short haircuts, and clean shaven, the men looked far different at Wednesday's hearing than they did in the mugshot photos from their arrests.
"The bottom line was he wanted to get the least amount of time," said Defense Attorney Terry Gilbert, of his client Connor Stevens.
"You just don't know what a jury is going to do," said John Pyle, who represented Brandon Baxter.
An undercover FBI agent sold the men inoperable detonators and plastic explosives and authorities arrested them on April 30 after determining that they planned to proceed with the attack.
Occupy Cleveland rally
According to an FBI affidavit, authorities paid a criminal informant more than $5,000 as part of their investigation into the group, when the informant met the five men at an anti-Wall Street Occupy Cleveland rally in October 2011.
Library of Congress
The Brecksville-Northfield High Level Bridge crosses over the Cuyahoga Valley National Park between Cleveland and Akron.
U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach told reporters after the hearings on Wednesday that his office was not spying on protest groups such as Occupy and did not entrap the five men.
"Make no mistake; it was their plot," Dettelbach said.
Defense attorneys had questioned the role of the paid informant and plan to raise those questions again at sentencing.
Speaking to NBC station WKYC, Stevens' mother Gail Stevens described the FBI's involvement in the case as "freaking evil."
Supporters say they want to hear how these "kids" got in over their heads, and what role the FBI played in this plot.
"We very much want this story to be told," Gail Stevens added.
Five men were arrested in Ohio, accused of plotting to blow up the Route 82 Brecksville-Northfield High Level Bridge near Cleveland. Charges are now pending against Douglas L. Wright, 26, Brandon L. Baxter, 20, and Anthony Hayne, 35, Connor C. Stevens, 20, and Joshua S. Stafford, 23. NBC's Brian Williams reports.
However, the FBI says its actions protected the public from terrorists.
"Our techniques utilized were both lawful, suitable and necessary in the prosecution of this case," FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge George Crouch said.
The Ohio FBI undercover operation was one of a number of stings by federal authorities in recent years aimed at preventing attacks by foreign and domestic militants.
The FBI has said the men had no ties to foreign militant groups, and court documents showed that they considered several possible plots, starting with smoke grenades and then moving up to explosives, prosecutors said.
Five alleged anarchists are being accused in plot to blow up a Cleveland bridge. NBC's Chris Clackum reports.
The case is not the first in which undercover agents have been used to gather evidence of suspected plots. A Moroccan man pleaded guilty in June to attempting a suicide bombing of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington in February. An undercover agent drove the suspect on the day of that planned attack.
Authorities also used undercover officers to gather evidence at the Chicago summit of the NATO military alliance in May. Three men described as anarchists were arrested then and accused of attempting to make Molotov cocktails to hurl at police.
Reuters and NBC station WKYC contributed to this report.
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Honda Names Betley Team Manager
American Honda Press Release
Torrance, CA: American Honda proudly announces Dan Betley as the new Honda Muscle Milk team manager beginning with the opening round of the 2013 Motocross season at the Hangtown Classic in Sacramento, CA. Betley successfully filled the role during the 2013 Supercross season as he led the team to two victories and six additional podiums.
Since he began his career with Honda in 1989, Betley has held multiple positions within the race team, including his most recent as Engine Development and R&D specialist. He has worked with many high profile motocross champions such as Jeff Stanton, Jeremy McGrath and Ricky Carmichael, making him highly qualified for the role as team manager.
"Dan has been with Team Honda for many years and has played an important role in the team's success," explained Honda Race Team Director Ray Conway. "It seems natural for him to move up to Team Manager and he has done a great job filling in during the 2013 Supercross season."
"I'm looking forward to transitioning into my new role," explained Betley. "It's a challenging job but I got a good feel for what it entails while filling in during the 2013 Supercross season and I'm grateful Honda chose me to continue as team manager. We have two extremely talented riders in Trey Canard and Justin Barcia and a great team behind them, so I am looking forward to a successful Motocross season."


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July 21, 2014
Last Call for Nominations; Top 10 Finalists to Compete for Global Title in Live Judging Event at DavidBartonGym
ROSEMONT, Ill., July 21, 2013 – Today, Life Fitness, a global leader in fitness equipment manufacturing, announces that one of DavidBartonGym's New York City locations will serve as the global stage for the Personal Trainers to Watch live competition, where the world's top personal trainer will be selected. The event, to be held on Oct. 17, will bring together the competition's top 10 finalists who will compete and be judged based on training technique using Life Fitness equipment.
Global Competition Winner To Be Named in New York City
DavidBartonGym's Christopher Street facility in New York City will host the live global judging event for the fourth annual Personal Trainers to Watch competition. DavidBartonGym focuses on providing an energetic and exciting atmosphere for its members, allowing them to build the body of their dreams and helping them to "LookBetterNaked." With locations in New York, Chicago, Miami, Seattle, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, each gym is designed to reflect its neighborhood, drawing upon unique elements of history and culture to embody the spirit of the community.
The gym's Christopher Street location features a wide array of Life Fitness equipment, including the SYNRGY360™ training system which serves as a hub for performing dynamic, state-of-the-art, total-body exercises, giving personal trainers and individuals a platform to experience unlimited training possibilities. In addition, the club features Life Fitness Elevation™ Series cardio equipment and an assortment of Life Fitness and Hammer Strength selectorized and free weight strength equipment.
"We're excited to partner with Life Fitness to recognize hardworking personal trainers who help improve lives every day," said Kevin Kavanaugh, President of DavidBartonGym. "We create an unparalleled atmosphere for our members to work out and this is the ideal location to test the finalists and select the world's best trainer."
"We've already received hundreds of nominations spanning every corner of the globe for this year's program," said Chris Clawson, Life Fitness president. "We saw immense talent in our ten finalists last year, and we're excited to select the top trainers this year to compete in New York City at DavidBartonGym."
Last Call for Nominations
The Personal Trainers to Watch program recognizes and rewards trainers around the world that embody the same passion and commitment to healthy lifestyles on which Life Fitness prides itself. Nominees are judged on dedication to enhancing client experiences and pursuing continuing education for mastery of the profession, as well as leadership, client motivation and inspiration.
Nominations will be accepted until July 31, 2014. To nominate a personal trainer who supports a powerful vision and exemplary commitment to the field, exercisers, personal trainers and gym owners alike can visit www.LifeFitness.com/PersonalTrainers. Nominations are limited to one entry per person; however, trainers can be nominated by multiple people.
The Personal Trainers to Watch program is held in partnership with the International Confederation of Registers for Exercise Professionals (ICREPs), EuropeActive, Life Fitness Academy and the American Council on Exercise® (ACE®).
About DavidBartonGym
Founded in 1992 in New York, DavidBartonGym has world class trainers with unrivaled success in changing bodies, state of the art equipment, exhilarating energy, and award-winning design. With locations in New York, Miami, Chicago, Seattle, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles, DavidBartonGym is devoted to its members and to helping them "LookBetterNaked."
About Life Fitness
Life Fitness is the global leader in commercial fitness equipment, as well as game tables and furnishings. The company manufactures and sells its well-known strength and cardiovascular equipment under its Life Fitness and Hammer Strength brands. It also offers billiards tables, accessories and game room furniture under the iconic Brunswick Billiards brand. Life Fitness, Hammer Strength and Brunswick Billiards equipment is distributed to more than 120 countries. Headquartered outside Chicago, in Rosemont, Ill., the company is a division of Brunswick Corporation (NYSE: BC).


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The Return of LBJ
Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908–1960
The Triumph & Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson: The White House Years
Among the presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to George Bush, Lyndon Johnson has no serious rival for the distinction of being held in lowest esteem in current public opinion. A recent Harris poll found him ranked at the bottom of nearly all categories named. These included high moral standards, in which even Richard Nixon placed above Johnson, and John F. Kennedy stood at the very top. There seems little doubt that LBJ is the president Americans now most love to hate.
No simple explanation would serve to account for this, but any attempt that neglected certain complexities would surely fail. Outstanding among them are those of the Vietnam War. What with conservatives blaming Johnson for losing it, liberals blaming him for fighting it, and Americans generally seeking some villain on whom to unload their burden of shame and guilt and unable to use a martyred Kennedy for that purpose, what better scapegoat could they find? And he a southerner who had shattered the Yankee myth of invincibility and subjected true-blue Americans to their first admittedly lost war. And further, how could so crass a southerner be permitted his claims to have done more for civil rights and blacks than any president since Lincoln, and to have gone on to score more humanitarian reforms with his War on Poverty and his Great Society program than all of them put together?
A public need has grown for evidence that would justify an ever more derogatory image of LBJ. This need has been served mainly by journalists of varied talents and methods with books of several degrees of fairness and balance or lack of both. The latest, longest, and most ambitious of these is a multivolumed work in progress by Robert A. Caro that only gets him to the Senate in its second large volume. Caro lays great stress on digging up facts, with special attention to those that support his thesis. The fairness and balance and sense of humor with which he uses his vast store of facts have been questioned by a reviewer in these pages who called his book "the inverse of gilding the lily."1
In contrast to the attention historians have lavished upon his predecessors and successors in the White House, scholars have shied away from Johnson. No serious, full-scale biography by a qualified historian has come forth until the appearance of the recent book by Robert Dallek. Known best for his Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, and the author of several other books, Dallek plans two large volumes on Johnson of which Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908–1960 is the first.
But how can anyone, however scholarly, pretend complete impartiality and detachment about a subject like Lyndon Johnson? Professor Dallek does his best to avoid partisanship, polemics, and thesis riding, and he attempts to deal fairly and fully with all sides. While he has gone so far, in a statement to the press, as to place LBJ along with FDR as "one…
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AIColorPicker 1.0
AIColorPicker is a very easy-to-use color picking tool that may pick color from your computer screen and copy the picked color code to clipboard.
If you're starting a design project, AIColorPicker is an absolute gem. This color picker gets you up close with a built-in magnifier, grabbing palettes of up to 16 colors at once.
Control it from the keyboard and grab up to 16 colors at once. See your color in RGB and HSL and get websafe info. Consistantly the most popular free color picker on the web, this version offers more choices to easily and effectivly create color palettes.It can show Hue, Saturation and Brightness values.
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contact geraci(at)subfuzz.com
[ Subfuzz is a record of work I made while at ITP from 2003 to 2005. To read about what I'm doing currently, please visit johngeraci.com.]
workshops & consulting:
July 8 - 15, Hosted a Group Mapping Week in collaboration with the Cooper-Hewitt Summer Design Institute. If you can't make it to the Design Institute, watch as it evolves by the minute on Foundcity.
June 20, presented Foundcity at Where 2.0 in San Francisco with my partner on the project, Christina Ray.
May 10 - 11, presented my thesis project, Foundcity, at the ITP Spring Show.
April 2 - 7, attended CHI 2005 in Portland, OR, where I presented an interactive poster with Scott Counts of the Social Computing Group at Microsoft Research, and also attended the Engaging The City: Public Interfaces As Civic Intermediary workshop.
October 2nd and 3rd, hosted a workshop at Spectropolis in New York City, along with Dana Spiegel on Building a Community Wireless Hotspot. You can read about the workshop here.
September 14th, presented Neighbornode to the FCC Wireless Broadband Access Taskforce.
September 7th, presented a paper at Ubicomp in the Urban Frontier, a workshop at Ubicomp 2004 in Nottingham, UK, hosted by Eric Paulos and Ken Anderson of Intel Research, and Anthony Townsend of the Urban Research Center at NYU.
Summer of 2004, worked with the Social Computing Group at Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington, researching ways to augment community and group interaction with the use of wireless mobile devices. Read more on raindrop, the group's blog.
in the news:
Free Neighborhood Wi-Fi
August 10, 2005 by Ethan Todras-Whitehill
The Web is all around us - even on the walls
July 7, 2005 by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore
Associated Press
The Art of Street Talk
June 12, 2005 by Justin Glanville
New York Times
The Web Behind the Scrawl
May 4, 2005 by Ethan Todras-Whitehill
Wired News
It's Not Graffiti, It's Grafedia
March 25, 2005 by Rachel Metz
Howdy, NeighborNode
March 15, 2005 by Gerry Blackwell
Rhizome Net Art News
January 17, 2005 by Alyssa Wright
Special Feature
December 21, 2004 by Amanda Congdon
Rhizome Net Art News
Net Neighbors
November 8, 2004 by Helen Varley Jamieson
New York Times
Where Good Wi-Fi Makes Good Neighbors
October 21, 2004 by Ian Keldoulis


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The American Canoe Association Level 1-2 Canoe Instructor Certification Workshop will meet on the college campus in Koons Hall 203.
A 2014 grant from the American Canoe Association (ACA) reduces the cost per participant to $200, which includes ACA membership, manual, lodging and meals. To register visit the Outdoor Leader Trainers of America webpage, click on "How to register" and follow the instructions on the website. Participants are required to complete a registration form and medical form, and return each to OLTOA with payment.
"This is an uncommonly exceptional deal," noted Kate Gilbert, Unity College Events Manager. "Thanks to the generous grant by the ACA, the cost has been reduced from a much more common comprehensive fee of $650.00. This is a special opportunity to save over $400 on the cost for participation in an ACA Instructor Certification Workshop."
Gilbert says that the ACA and US Coast Guard are working together with Unity College, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, and Outdoor Leader Trainers of America to bring this opportunity to Maine.
The goals of this workshop are to help student instructors learn how to enhance their on water teaching techniques, offer effective feedback, and improve their group management skills. Participants will learn how to teach ACA Canoe Workshops and receive the information they need to achieve certification in the ACA. Successful candidates will receive ACA certification as a Level 1 or Level 2 Canoe Instructor upon completion of the workshop at Unity College.
The criteria for an ACA Level 1 canoe Instructor is available on the ACA registration page here. The web page also describes the skills that will be developed during the workshop.
Participants can expect a rigorous experience.
Instructor is Bob Myron has over 30 years of experience in outdoor recreation, including over 20 years as an outdoor educator. His past experiences include owning and operating his own retail/guide business in northern Maine, serving as lead paddlesport instructor for L.L. Bean's Outdoor Discovery Schools, and teaching courses in colleges and universities.
"One has to effectively demonstrate the skills listed on the ACA web site in order to be certified," noted Myron. "Participation alone does not guarantee certification, but there is an outstanding support system in place to ensure that all participants achieve their personal best."
Myron has taken special interest in everything that might enhance his abilities as a teacher, and has adapted those skills and theories into outdoor education programs. Recognizing that it can be difficult for outdoor leaders to find adequate training and resources, he became convinced of the need for Outdoor Leadership Education and OLTOA was born.
"We started with the belief that resources for outdoor leaders should be accessible, offered in a supportive and positive learning environment, kept up-to-date on industry practices, and include instruction in teaching and leadership skills, in addition to 'hard skills'," noted Myron. "We also wanted to create a place to find those "a- ha!" tips for both common and uncommon questions."
Monday, April 21, 2014


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Council To Hear Plan on Subdivision By Rock Bridge State Park
COLUMBIA - The Columbia City Council will hear a housing plan Monday night that could mean an additional 65 houses and 11 duplexes along Route K in Columbia.
The plan would create one of the largest housing developments Columbia has seen in years, which has some residents worried about how it will affect Rock Bridge State Park.
Residents near where the proposed Parkside Estates would be constructed said they are concerned about traffic and urban development so close to Rock Bridge State Park.
Columbia Independent School formerly owned the property before selling it to Columbia residents Rob and Sarah Hill in October of 2012.
This issue has already been tabled twice by the Columbia City Council since its proposal in December. Tim Crockett, one of the engineers on the project, is asking that the issue be tabled for Thursday's meeting as well. He said he hopes to still work with neighboring property owners in the area in order to refine the application to meet their needs as well.


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Ivan Putski Shoot Interview DVD-R
Please verify you have a compatible player before purchasing our DVD-R titles. We are not responsible for the compatibility of your player to our DVD-R titles.
Click here to check: (DVD-R Compatibility Chart)
Shoot inteview with pro wrestling legend Ivan Putski on 10/3/04. One of the WWF's top babyfaces in the late 70's and 80's was able to relive so many memories from his start in Texas for this exclusive shoot interview. He talked about learning the business from Joe Blanchard and working all of the territories that were around like the Mid South region and Fritz Von Erichs promotion. He also talked about working for Verne Gagne and then going to the WWF for the next 20 years. We talk about all of his major feuds and life on the road for the Polish Power. Ivan talks about steroids and you will be shocked at how open he was. This is one interivew that you dont want to miss!!!
Here are some of the questions we asked Ivan Putski:
-Were you a wrestling fan growing up
-How did you get into strength competitions
-What kind of training did you do back in the late 60s, early 70s
-How did you wind up in wrestling
-What was the biggest misconception you may have had about wrestling before you entered the business.
-Your pro Football background
-Who approached you
-What was SOuthwest like?
-Did any one take you under their wings?
-Thoughts on Mil Mascaras at that time?
-Memories on Red Bastien
-Thoughts on Jose Lothario
-Memories of Joe Blanchard
-How he got to go to Mid South and work for Bill Watts
-What was Watts like as a booker
-How he went to TX and worked for Fritz Von Erich
-Stories on how he made up work outs for the Von Erichs when they were only in high school
-Working some shots for the Funks
-How he wound up in AWA for Verne Gagne
-How did you wind up in the WWWF?
-Initial thoughts on Vince Sr and Toots Mondt
-Thoughts on Bruno Sammartino
-What was the locker room like at the time
-How big was kayfabe back than
-When did you first use steroids
-Why everyone was taking them and what effect it had on him
-Memories of Peter Maivia
-Memories of headlining MSG against Billy Graham
-Did you ever meet Arnold during the 70s
-Memories of Lou Albano
-What was the out of the ring scene like back in the 70s with drugs and groupies
-Memories of Bugsy Mgraw
-Memories of the Blackjacks
-Memories of Ernie Ladd
-Memories of Ivan Koloff
-Memories of your matches with Stan Hansen during his first run in 76
-Memories of Gorilla Monsoon
-You were scheduled to work Ernie Ladd at Shea Stadium in 76 but Baron Scicluna subbed, any reason?
-Memories of your series with Bruiser Brody
-Memories of your series with Ken patera
-Was there a lot of pressure to chizzle your physique back then with the arrivals of Patera, and Graham
-Any Mr. Fuji ribs that stick out
-Was it a big deal to you to get the tag straps with Tito
-Memories of the Valiants
-Memories of the Samoans
-Memories of your series with Jesse Ventura
-Do you think the houses were different with Backlund on top rather than Bruno
-Thoughts on Backlund
-Were there any considerations to turn you heel
-Memories of Muraco
-Memories of Iron Sheik
-Memories of Killer Khan
-Memories of your series with Piper
-How did things change for you as a performer with the new era of stars like Hogan and Piper
-Thoughts on Hogan
-At what point did your son tell you he wanted to wrestle
-How active were you in training him
-How do you think he handled the pressure of bein
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id's Hollenshead on the Wolfenstein Movie
First mentioned several years ago, no mention had been made of the Wolfenstein movie until id CEO Todd Hollenshead stated that writer/director Roger Avary (Killing Zoe, The Rules of Attraction) and producer Samuel Hadida (Resident Evil, Silent Hill, The Black Dahlia) are moving forward on the project. I spoke with Hollenshead at QuakeCon about the movie, the personnel involved, and how id's approach to filmmaking has changed since Doom.
Crucially, this time around, id secured development talent before going to a studio--with the Doom film, the process was the reverse.
"It's very different on Wolfenstein," explained Hollenshead. "As opposed to licensing the film rights to a studio, and then figuring out who's going to do what, we went directly to the producer, Samuel Hadida."
Hadida has frequently worked with Roger Avary, who collaborated with former writing partner Quentin Tarantino on Pulp Fiction and True Romance, and has written and directed films such as Killing Zoe and The Rules of Attraction. As it turns out, Avary is also a video game fan. His love of the Silent Hill series led to his penning the script for its movie adaptation, helmed by Brotherhood of the Wolf director Christophe Gans--who himself is directing the upcoming film adaptation of Capcom's Onimusha.
"Last year, Roger Avary came to QuakeCon, and he expressed what a fan of Wolfenstein he was and how he wanted to work on this stuff," Hollenshead recalled. "We were still thinking about who was interested in the rights, before we even started working on a contract, and Roger said, 'Yeah, I'll be the writer on this project, and I'd probably direct it as well.'" id was only too happy to accept the arrangement.
Said Hollenshead, "You want a guy who understands the property, is a big fan of it, wants do a movie that is Wolfenstein, and has the talent to make that happen. In my mind, Roger is an unquestionably talented writer. I couldn't be more psyched.
"When we did the Doom deal, we had no writer associated with it. We had no director associated with it. Those were wildcards we had to go out and find," he continued. "I think if there's anything that's the most important aspect of getting a movie made, it's having a great script, because the script is what you send out to the studios who basically form the production of it."
I suggested that Wolfenstein may also fundamentally be the id property best suited for a movie from the beginning. "I think it has the most thoroughly fleshed out story," conceded Hollenshead.
But how about that Doom movie? "I loved the Doom movie," he answered, "and maybe that's just because I worked on it--but I think there are some things we learned that we can do different and do better."
As it has for years, QuakeCon hosted the Sinus Show, a Mystery Science Theatre 3000-like live movie commentary act--and this year's roast subject was the Doom movie.
"We invited them, and they said, 'Hey, do you mind if we do the Doom movie?' and we were like, 'Okay, we're cool with that,'" said the CEO. "I mean, if you can't make fun of yourself and can't laugh at yourself, I think you're living in a bit of a narcissistic existence."
While I never finished any of the SH games that I played, I thought the movie captured the overall feeling of the games pretty well. I have no idea how badly they butchered the story, but for someone that was just going to see Silent Hill to see it for a movie, and not an adaptation, I enjoyed it immensely.
And it was pretty spectacular to both the eyes and the ears.
Bottom line, it was a fun flick to sit through.
That aside, I just didn't think it was actually written well. Game or not, there's such a thing as well-written dialogue and a well-structured plot. Since they already changed plot elements from the game anyway, you can't use attempting to stay true to the game as an excuse for that. I'm fine with changing things to make a better film as long as they aren't gratuitous changes, that's not my complaint.


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1 Kings 17:1-24
Rev. Marci Glass
Southminster Presbyterian Church
An open and affirming community, seeking a caring and just society.
6500 Overland Rd
Boise, ID 83709
Pastor Marci has accepted a call from Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco. Southminster Presbyterian Church has begun the process of finding a new Pastor.
6500 West Overland Road
Boise, ID 83709
Office Hours:
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday
9 am to 3 pm
Worship: 9:30 AM
No Sunday morning services on Sabbath weekends
Worship on Second Saturday of each month is at 5 pm. The following Sunday morning is a day of Sabbath rest, with no scheduled worship or activities.